


The Despondent Disparity of Kokichi Ouma

by TheMayBellTree



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, M/M, Mild Gore, Oma Kokichi Needs a Hug, anger turns into compassion, like. hardcore angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 16:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21461053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMayBellTree/pseuds/TheMayBellTree
Summary: After Kokichi Ouma reveals himself as the mastermind, Shuichi Saihara finds himself visited by his weeping spirit in a dream.
Relationships: Oma Kokichi/Saihara Shuichi
Comments: 14
Kudos: 188





	The Despondent Disparity of Kokichi Ouma

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm back!
> 
> So I haven't written for a very long time (which I'll go into more detail with why once I post ch.6 of m:ily). This oneshot's main purpose is to get me back into the flow of writing and I feel that near the middle to the end I might've gotten my zing back so! We'll see! Enjoy!

Shuichi didn’t consider himself an angry person. In fact, he was rather laid back considering the circumstances. He was privy to fits of anxiety and bouts of hyperventilation on those sleepless nights that he could picture the hanging -  _ crushed  _ \- body of Kaede in his mind’s eye, but the next day he would always find himself back to normal as though nothing had happened. He would greet Kaito and Maki in the dining hall and wait for their remaining classmates to join their trio, to eat in silence and to glance at each other distrustfully with the knowledge that one of them was the mastermind behind the entire killing game. As the numbers began to shrink the anxiety only began to grow; many times Shuichi had to suppress a budding scream that he could feel travelling through his Adam’s apple and up his larynx. When he was alone, he would simply grit his teeth and shrink in on himself, kneading his lips between the front and bottom rows of his teeth as though the friction and the pain of breaking the skin would distract him from the pain of losing yet another classmate hours prior in a class trial. 

However, Shuichi wasn’t always alone. Sometimes Kaito and Maki would be walking alongside him, whispering in hushed tones as to avoid making a scene in a school that was beginning to feel much too empty. Usually, Shuichi was fine around those two - it was a comfort to have company; it was a luxury to know that there would always be people who had your back, even in the most unconventional places. Then Kaito would cough and Maki would fall silent and Shuichi would simply follow along like the blind sheep he was, chasing Kaito to the ends of the earth as though in doing so he might be able to prevent his untimely demise. Those times were the hardest. Shuichi would clench his fist and dig his untrimmed nails into the palms of his hands. He would clench and chip away at the fine, callused skin as though he were trying to draw blood; on one such occasion he actually did, but it was merely a droplet that could easily be mistaken for red ink in the proper lighting. 

Shuichi was an anxious mess but he truthfully could be responding a lot more aggressively or desperately in his situation (and he’s sure no one would blame him for such actions). Despite everything, he hadn’t been downright  _ angry _ . He had been saddened and depressed after Kaede’s death and that morose feeling would only intensify with every classmate that he had failed to save with his lackluster “detective” skills. Then soon afterwards with just the right amount of caffeine, sleep deprivation, and Kaito, he would find himself renewed and invigorated to succeed in saving as many of the imprisoned ultimates as he could. The cycle was continuous and Shuichi was fairly certain it was the literal definition of insanity, but it worked for him just as well. If it could distract him from his vile and worthless thoughts, then so be it. He’d cope that way.

Shuichi was never truly  _ angry  _ until Iruma and Gonta’s deaths. He had been coping. He had been willing to put aside his anger with the mastermind to instead foster pure, unadulterated determination that would flow through his veins with every waking breath. But then Kokichi Ouma had to drop into the picture. He had to expose himself as the mastermind and he had to find such gross, childish  _ glee  _ in the murders of Iruma and Gonta - murders that he had carried out with his own  _ hands  _ \- whether directly or indirectly. And worst yet, he made Shuichi feel utterly, truly hopeless. He kidnapped Kaito and held him hostage and told them all that they were the last living hopes of humanity - hopes that he had willingly been snuffing out as a means to his selfish ends. It was disgusting. It was horrid and it repulsed Shuichi that he had ever even  _ thought  _ about being friends with the so-called “harmless prankster”. 

Ouma wasn’t harmless and he certainly wasn’t a mere prankster. He was an absolute madman. He was a lunatic and he  _ thrived  _ in that. 

Therefore, when Ouma came to him in a dream, Shuichi was _infuriated_. Not only had he made it his mission to make his every second alive an absolute hell, but he had the audacity to intrude on his rest as well - rest that was scarce due to _him _in the first place! Yes, perhaps it was Shuichi’s subconscious, but dammit he was still angry. Every time he closed his eyes he would see Kaede or Tojo or - fuck - even _Shinguji_, fighting desperately with all of their might to survive in a game that sentenced them to death. And now everytime he closed his eyes, praying that he might see nothing but darkness, he only saw Kaito, coughing blood into already bloodied palms and the smile he had fought so hard to see becoming replaced with a despondent, empty grin and hollowed eyes. It was because of _him._ It was because of _Ouma_ that he stopped and stared at the kitchen knives every time he passed them in the dining hall. It was because of _Ouma _that he would sometimes rip at his hair and he would find that chunks had fallen out. It was because of _Ouma _that he was fighting every goddamn second of his life to keep his head above water lest he drown. It was because of _Ouma_ and _goddammit _why the fuck did looking at the kid make him want to cry.

Kokichi Ouma was hurt and he was crying. It was odd. That was how Shuichi first registered the entire experience as a dream. Normally, Shuichi would take hold of the dream at the first sign of the revelation and shift it to something much more pleasant, but Shuichi was filled with a quiet, quite morbid curiosity. He tilted his head, an anger growing inside of his heart but a small sliver of actual  _ compassion  _ pushing against it. 

Everything was white. It was just Ouma and him and nothing else. Shuichi furrowed his eyebrows and began chewing at the skin of his lip. Hesitantly, he put one foot in front of the other and began shuffling towards the boy. 

Ouma was crouched on the ground, a purple and familiar jacket wrapped around his shoulders. He was crying into his fists as though he were a toddler, wiping and sobbing into them as though a terrible tragedy had befallen him. Odd; apparently the subconscious Shuichi actually thought Ouma was capable of real human emotion. (And, truthfully, so did the conscious Shuichi.)

As Shuichi stalked forward his footfalls ricocheted within the dream as though he were walking upon marble floors in an echoey chamber. With each step his bare feet sank into the white ground and ripples surrounded him like he was walking on water. 

This startled Ouma. In a flash, he looked up and stared right at Shuichi. Despite the fact that he was looking right at the perpetrator of the noise, he called out: “who's there?”

Shuichi paused. His lips fell open in a soft gape, observing and calculating as he took in the boy. Ouma stood up, pacing and chewing on his thumb as he rapidly spun his head around the surrounding area. A soft droplet of blood fell from him despite the fact that it appeared as though he had no wounds. Rather, it was almost like it spontaneously appeared. Shuichi wouldn’t have even noticed it if not for the fact that as soon as the tiny droplet of blood hit the white floor the entire floor became a crimson red. With each step Shuichi’s feet got tangled in the mess of threads and his footfalls became much louder, rivaling that of gunshots as he neared the villain of his story.

Ouma gasped “whoever is doing this, you aren’t funny. Stop being a prick.”

Shuichi’s resolve hardened. Perhaps this was payback. He neared his opponent. The footsteps became louder. He could hear his own heart beat in his ears and he could feel the adrenaline course through his veins. His legs felt like lead as he dragged them through the thick, starchy blood but he persevered, determined to give Ouma a piece of his mind even though he was merely a figment of Shuichi’s imagination.

Just before Shuichi reached Ouma, he stopped. The boy was shaking; he quivered and held his hands over his eyes. His nails dug into the fine skin overlying his eyebrow. The skin peeled off easily - it made Shuichi wonder if the pale alabaster mask he wore was merely a figment of his imagination; perhaps it had never been there, perhaps Ouma had always been a tangled mess of bones and muscles. On a less dreary note, perhaps Shuichi was imagining the skin ripping from Ouma’s flesh. That was the more likely conclusion. It was simply a dream.

Ouma’s mouth fell open and he gently gasped. The edges of his molars grinded against one another and when he closed his mouth once again he bit through the quickly liquefying remains of his lips. 

The hell? Was this some sort of nightmare? Perhaps this was Shuichi’s own will - he hadn’t touched the man but he had wished harm upon him. In his dream that may have caused Ouma to quite literally compust. Blood fell from Ouma and onto the solid nothingness that laid beneath them. The blood trailed towards Shuichi, drenching the detective’s dress shoes in blood. 

Shuichi gagged. He had wanted to get revenge on Ouma. However, even in his dream he didn’t deserve this much pain.

“I-It hurts…”

_ Ouma? _

“I… don’t want… to die…”

Shuichi didn’t understand. This was too realistic. Why was his mind making him garner sympathy for Ouma?

“Saihara… Shuichi…”

Shuichi nearly jumped out of his skin. Despite forcing himself to look away from the melting form of Kokichi Ouma beforehand, he made himself look back to hear what Ouma could possibly want to say to him - even if it was a dream he couldn’t quite restrain his natural curiosity. He was a detective for a reason. He lived to discover the truth. Perhaps he could discover what on earth his brain was telling him with this dream. He wasn’t an expert in the deeper meaning of dreams, but he was sure with the proper amount of insight and just the right amount of luck he could accomplish the task.

“... I… can’t breathe… I wish I could’ve told you Shuichi… I wish… I wish I had been able to tell you it was all a lie… to see you one last time… to show you… who I really am…” Ouma was nearly a puddle on the ground. His eyes stared up at him amongst the puddle, weeping tears that were nearly translucent amount the red.

Shuichi grimaced.

“... it was… this damned killing game! How could a game… like this… be fun for anyone? I… please… I don’t want to… I don’t want to die.”

_ Die, Ouma. Please. Even you don’t deserve to be in this much misery. _

“End the killing game. For… everyone who died. For Kaede… for Gonta… Miu… everyone I killed… I’m… sor…”

“... don’t speak anymore, Ouma.”

“Shu… i… I… you are… th…”

Shuichi knelt next to the puddle of blood. When he dipped his finger in it, he felt all of the pain and misery that Ouma must be feeling. It made absolutely no sense. Ouma was a lunatic. Surely his mind knew that? He couldn’t possibly feel this amount of despair. He found  _ pleasure  _ in making others suffer.

“I… lo… ou…”

Shuichi sighed. The eyes that had been intently watching him dipped into the dark puddle. “Sleep, Kokichi.”

And he did.

The rest of Ouma faded into nothing. There was not a sound in the vast void and the walls and floors around him darkened into a dull monochrome. 

Shuichi shed a tear for Kokichi Ouma. 

* * *

When the remaining killing game participants found a bloodied, unidentifiable body underneath a permanently closed hydraulic press the following day they all believed it was Kaito. A single sleeve laid outside it, resemblant of the trademark jacket that Kaito would wear everyday. Neither Kokichi Ouma nor Kaito Momota was to be seen.

When the others had dispersed to investigate different areas in hopes of discovering who the true victim of the case was, Shuichi lagged behind. The blood was thick and everywhere and reminded him so much of the dream he had the previous night. 

He laid a hand against the closed press. It was cold against his hand and it stung a cut he had acquired the previous day. He paid no mind to it. He closed his eyes and leaned his forward against it, stroking the metal with his thumb as though he could possibly make up for his failure; perhaps the victim would find comfort in Shuichi’s reassurance even after death, however unlikely.

“Kokichi…”

The press was silent. The blood was silent. No eyes stared back at him in the blood and no words were uttered.

“I’m… It… surely it was a coincidence…”

He clutched his chest. He nearly fell sideways with the amount of misery and pain and despair that managed to claw its way into his heart. It was… a coincidence. Surely? It must’ve been. It… must’ve…

“Please don’t… I can’t…”

If it wasn’t… Kaito was alive. Surely that was a good thing?

In his mind’s eye he saw the face of Kokichi Ouma, brilliantly smiling at him as he lost yet another game for Shuichi’s own benefit. He would skip away gallantly and exclaim that he would get him next time. But he never did. It was all… a lie. 

_ A lie. _

A damned lie.

“You’re such an idiot, Kokichi.”

For the second time, Shuichi shed a tear for Kokichi Ouma. It didn’t stop at one. He kept crying and weeping over the sudden loss. He wanted to hate the mischievous little prick so badly but he couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair at all. He deserved it… that’s what they would say when they discovered the truth… he deserved it.

_ No. _

He remembered the scared puddle of Kokichi. He remembered how he cried out for Shuichi; he remembered how in his final moments he begged for Shuichi to end the killing game. He remembered how it was all a lie.

“Kokichi…” he wiped his tears. “Rest easy now. I’ll end this killing game once and for all. I promise.”

When Maki came back to the hydraulic press she would find a bloodied Shuichi with red-rimmed eyes. Naturally, she would assume the tears were for Kaito and she wouldn’t question it any further because her eyes were just as red. She wouldn’t be wrong. Shuichi was crying for Kaito, but he was also crying for Kokichi.

Only a day later, when there were only three killing game contestants left and a vast outside world to be explored, would Shuichi tell her the truth. And only then would they crumble in each other's arms and cry about the loss they had endured. 

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, that's that. I hope y'all enjoyed! If you enjoyed this fic please leave a kudos and comment your thoughts on the chapter, good or bad! I've decided to actually write professionally so constructive criticism is always welcome, especially since I'm rusty. And if you just liked it, feel free to comment too! It makes my day!
> 
> Follow me on my twitter:  
@M_BTree


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